Schools

mszluka · 02-10-2006, 10:56 AM

When searching out schools for your kids, what course of action did you take to make sure you were getting a decent place to send them? Did you do internet research, just go visit, etc? I'm searching for a decent day care/preschool for a four year old.

bjb · 02-10-2006, 04:43 PM

When it comes to daycare, go visit in person after looking at them on the web- unannounced if you can get away with it. Nothing like a surprise inspection. If you don't like what you see on the web, not much use in going in person. These people will a great deal of influence over your toddler make sure their values are the same as yours.

Bob · 02-10-2006, 07:55 PM

For Daycares and Dayschools you can do a lot of research on the Internet... Including parents comments in forums similiar to this one. What we did was call the daycares that we were interested in and asked them the same questions that we asked everyone so that we could compare the answers across the board. Feel free to ask for references as well.

Ask if you can come in and visit and 90+% of the time they are OK with that. Then you can make some "pop-in" visits and at least have had a contact person that you spoke with prior... That will help if you do an unscheduled visit. You can even bring your child into a class in a lot of places while you are visiting the school.

Ask what kind of certification they have and what kind of curriculum/format/philosophy they teach. If you don't understand it then ask them to explain the difference in their's versus another philosophy.

Churches have really great daycares as well, and you don't have to be a member of the church usually to have your child attend... and they have to be state certified just like everyone else. We ended up finding the perfect daycare for us at our church... turns out it was one of the best in the city with a long waiting list, but my father-in-law (long time church member) got us in early... still had a 2 month wait though.

Good Luck!

Also, if you or anyone else is looking for Grade Schools:

This is a nice site for basic research and stats on schools in your area. I think there's some deeper info you can get from the site like "Parent's Reviews" etc... for a one time fee. Regardless the free part is very helpful. You can see State Test Scores, Teacher Stats, Classroom sizes compared to state averages.

http://www.greatschools.net/

Here's an example of the information you can get, (This would be the school my daughter will be attending).

http://www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/tx/other/467

There's lots of other resources out there. Information is public if they are state schools. That site also has private schools as well.

I know there's lots of other research sites on the internet out there so do a quick search. When we went looking for a place to live that had good schools we relied on 1: the internet 2: Work of mouth and 3: Real Estate Agents... they usually have LOTS of info on local school districts.

Good Luck!

Bob

Aviator27J · 07-10-2006, 07:09 PM

Although my son is 15 months and not in childcare I know one thing I will be making sure of is that the place is insured. Ask about this, don't assume or even take their word for it on a web page (maybe the provider or something has been changed/upgraded, etc). Probably some states require places to be insured if they have a certain number of children or something long those lines, but regardless (and since you probably don't know your state/community's rules) be 100% sure you're covered in that respect. It's not so much so you wouldn't have to pay for medical bills if he/she is injured but more so that if something really bad happened (long-term or lifetime disability, etc) you'd be compensated. It's just as important as you having homeowners insurance to protect you as well as your guests, so why skip it for childcare?

The other consideration is foreign language. Do you want your son/daughter to hear other languages in addition to English or maybe in place of English? I wish I could find someone who could instruct in Italian or a couple languages in addition to English so my son could get influence and experience with it. Now if only there were Latin... 8)

lap · 07-10-2006, 10:34 PM

http://www.nafcc.org/include/default.asp
http://www.naeyc.org/

Murray Zook · 07-10-2006, 10:44 PM

This sounds funny, but listen to your kid. Ours is currently 18 mos, but has been going since she was 10 mos. We had our daughter in a daycare that was home based, seemed like a friendly good deal. BUT... she hated to go there, went in crying, came out crying and probably cried all day long. To make a long story short, she wanted out and we listened.

New place, more expensive, but she absolutely loves it. It is a center, very organized and a huge relief for us. Scheduled activities and we get a report card every day. We know what she ate, when she went potty, what her mood was. Like I said, it is much more expensive, but worth it.

Good luck.